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Defendant charges that complainant's purpose in wanting a telephone is to serve all the subscribers for the mutual telephone company's service in transferring local and long distance messages over the defendant's lines. Complainant disclaims such an intent, but his testimony was not entirely clear on that point. He testified that he might transfer messages for others if requested to do so. (Transcript, p. 21-22.)

Complainant said that he did not want defendant's service unless he could have his own messages from either system transferred to him through the agency of the operators of the mutual company in charge of its switchboard; hence the determination of complainant's right to compel defendant to install and maintain a telephone for such uses will decide the issue presented in this case. Complainant testified to an instance of such use in his proposal to call from his residence over his line to the office of the mutual company and then to have the agents of the mutual company make such a connection through the defendant's switchboard from the connection complainant is now seeking, and to gain the information he desires as to the time of the trains and to transmit the same to complainant over his line from the mutual switchboard.

Complainant would be thereby afforded telephone communication through the defendant's lines and switchboard by transferring the message through the agency of the mutual company on to the lines of the defendant.

The Commission holds that it would not be warranted in requiring defendant to install a telephone for the complainant at the mutual company's office for the said purpose for which complainant proposes to use it as set out above. The testimony shows that the complainant spends very little time in the office of the mutual company. He admits that the employees of the mutual company, as a part of their duties, would handle the calls to be transferred to or from him through the defendant's telephone when placed there. To require the defendant to furnish a telephone which is nominally for the plaintiff, but which is to

be handled by the employees of the mutual company in transferring messages of complainant or of others, to and from the mutual company lines, is to require the defendant to submit its lines for the use of its rival in handling messages through its switchboard, which course of action the Commission has no authority to require.

We have not overlooked the contention of complainant that defendant permits other subscribers for its services who also receive service from the mutual company, to transfer messages from one system to the other. That practice is against the rules of defendant and which it is endeavoring to enforce. It would be manifestly unjust for defendant to permit complainant to transfer messages and to maintain a rule against other patrons doing the same.

The fact that defendant permits a non-subscriber to use a subscriber's station for toll service upon assurance that the subscriber will pay the toll charges, cannot be made the basis for claiming unjust discrimination in refusing to install a telephone for complainant at the mutual company's office for sending toll messages from the mutual company's lines to be transmitted by the mutual company's agents, or by complainant, over defendant's lines. The courts recognize a vast difference in furnishing telephone service to a competitor and to a subscriber or a nonsubscriber who is not a competitor in the same business.

The Commission is in full sympathy with the desires of the residents of the community of Calhoun for adequate telephone service to all at reasonable rates. Perhaps the experience of other communities in this State under similar conditions, as shown by the records of the Commission, will suggest the course to be pursued by the mutual company and the defendant at Calhoun in the solution of the present difficulties there in obtaining satisfactory telephone service.

For the reasons given above, the complaint herein should be dismissed.

It is so ordered.

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ORDER.

This case being at issue upon complaint and answer, and having been duly heard and submitted and the Commission having on the date hereof made a report in writing containing its findings and conclusions herein, which said report is hereby referred to and made a part hereof,

It is ordered, 1. That the complaint herein be, and the same is hereby, dismissed.

Ordered, 2. That this order shall be in full force and effect on and after ten days from the date hereof.

Ordered, 3. That the secretary shall forthwith serve a copy of this report and order upon complainant and defendant.

January 4, 1924.

In re APPLICATION OF THE GASCONADE VALLEY TELEPHONE COMPANY TO INCREASE RATES.

Case No. 3798.

Decided January 7, 1924.

Increase in Rates Authorized.

REPORT.

The Gasconade Valley Telephone Company filed a schedule containing higher rates to be charged at its exchanges at Morrison and Pershing. The effective date of the schedule was postponed pending an investigation by the Commission, of the reasonableness of the rates as proposed by the company.

Accordingly, a hearing was held at the office of the Commission on the thirtieth day of November, 1923, and the case submitted for decision. F. B. Field, manager of the telephone company, appeared in its behalf. Frederick Toelle and Joseph Augustine of Morrison appeared in opposition to the new rates.

Morrison is in Gasconade County on the line of the Missouri Pacific Railroad and has a population of about

336. Pershing is 12 miles distant and is not as large as Morrison.

The Gasconade Valley Telephone Company which will be hereinafter referred to as the applicant, has a switchboard at Morrison and also at Pershing. The testimony in behalf of applicant tended to show that the revenues now received by it from its patrons were not sufficient to pay operating expenses.

Objection was made to increasing the rates until the service had been improved. There was some testimony as to specific instances of inadequate service, but the service was not of such a character as to defeat an increase in rates, provided the evidence justifies the same.

The following tables show the number and class of subscribers served by the applicant at Morrison and Pershing and also the present and proposed rates.

MORRISON EXCHANGE.

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The increased rates as now sought at Morrison were estimated to yield additional annual revenue to applicant of $727. The applicant's total revenues from the present rates at Morrison for the year 1923, were $1,688.

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The total revenues of the applicant for 1923 at its Pershing exchange, were $450. The proposed rates are estimated to yield annually an additional sum of $123.

Applicant seeks to abandon its Class D service at both Morrison and Pershing. By Class D service is meant that class of service where applicant furnishes and maintains all the equipment, except the telephone instrument, which is furnished and maintained by the subscriber. We think it better to fix a rate for that service to be applied until the applicant and patrons taking that service may agree upon a change.

Applicant's statement sets out the value of its property at Morrison as $4,788 and at Pershing $1,795. Applicant's statement as submitted sets out operating expenses at Morrison for 1923 amounting to $2,973 and at Pershing for the same period, $1,593.50. These statements of operating expenses at both places are obviously inaccurate, because many items not properly chargeable to operation have been included by the applicant as operating expenses, and adjustments must be made to ascertain the operating expenses at these exchanges.

Eliminating improper items shown as operating expenses on the applicant's exhibit, we conclude that the reasonable operating expenses for 1923 at Morrison were approximately $1,720 and $800 at Pershing. This would show that the present rates at Morrison do not quite pay operating expenses and do not yield anything for depreciation or return upon the value of the property, and that the present rates lack $350 of paying operating expenses at Pershing and yield nothing for depreciation or return upon the value of the property.

It is, therefore, apparent that applicant's rates should be increased to some extent. The Commission holds the following to be reasonable and just rates to be applied by the applicant to its service at its Morrison exchange.

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